


Truths

by nowhere_dawn_death_phan



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_dawn_death_phan/pseuds/nowhere_dawn_death_phan
Summary: Sherlock has been gone for two months, but Mary has had questions for a long time before that. And John decides now is as good a time to any to answer them.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson
Kudos: 8





	Truths

“What sort of person would you be if you’d never met Sherlock?”  
The question doesn’t surprise him. Nor does the answer, which sits docile on the edge of his tongue. There’s no weight to it either, though at one point there would have been. “I’d be dead.”  
Mary looks at him out of the corner of her eye, and there’s a softness in her. Whatever answer she’d been expecting, he could tell it hadn’t been that. “What makes you say that?”

It’s delicate, it’s a gentle assurance he doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to, if he isn’t ready to. But he is.  
“Mary…” his voice is soft. “He….I….It was a long time ago. I was younger. It was just after the war. I was scared. I was alone. I’d gotten kicked out of where I’d been staying because I couldn’t afford the rent. I was getting drunk every day, I was gambling away almost everything I had. I didn’t see the point in living. Everything was terrifying. My health was ruined; I was forced to accept I’d never be the same as I was before I went off. That maybe I’d never be able to walk unaided again. And I wasn’t even thirty, I was supposed to have this whole life in front of me that now I couldn’t do anything with.”

He broke off, feeling tears rise in his eyes, and Mary slid her hand into his.  
“I’d have died, if I hadn’t met him. I’d have died either destitute on the streets or I’d have killed myself. They were the worst days of my life. But he had this idea, this attitude, Sherlock did, that you just had to keep going. No matter what, just keep going. And I needed him so much, those first few months. I would have died without him. I’ll admit that now.”  
“And now? What will you do without him now?”  
Watson wipes his eyes, and Mary sees his jaw clench. It’s not been long since Holmes died at Reichenbach, almost two months but every day Watson wakes up as if it’s only the morning after. Some mornings Mary’ll wake to him crying, some mornings to him screaming, and some mornings to find nothing at all, to find he’s simply gotten up and wandered off during the night, and those are the days he’ll return around evening, drunk, red-eyed and unsteady.

“I don’t know.” His voice is hollow, but what scares Mary most is how willing he is to admit he doesn’t know how much longer he can go on. “Take each day as it comes, I suppose. Focus on one thing at a time. Don’t look too far into the future. And we’ll get there in the end, I assume. One way or another.”  
Mary’s grip on his hand tightens, and Watson allows himself to sink into her. “I hope…” he takes a breath. “I hope you never see me the way Holmes did when we first met. I hope you never have to see me that scared, that helpless. I’d never forgive myself if you did.”

Some part of Mary can’t believe Watson could possibly sink lower than this. Could be reduced to less than the man he is now. But a bigger part of her worries that if he does, there’s no-one to pull him out this time. There’s no Sherlock to teach him how to smile again, or to help him understand that it’s never as bad as it seems.  
All there is is Mary; and for the first time since they married, she’s struck with the idea that may not be enough.


End file.
